Background

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, UN Women works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women is mandated to lead and coordinate United Nations System efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of national priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with government, civil society and other relevant actors.

In Nepal, UN Women's current programme focuses on women's leadership in peace and security, economic empowerment of women and gender responsive national planning and budgeting processes to contribute to achieving the goals of gender equality and empowerment of women. In addition to the above, UN Women also actively participates and contributes to various UN inter-agency processes and collaborates with UN organizations around specific programme areas.

UN Women Nepal continues its work to strengthen the women’s economic empowerment through initiating the programme on ‘’Advancing Women’s Economic Empowerment- Ensuring sustainable and Equitable Development 2015- 2017’’. The programme contributes to the UN Women Nepal Country Office’s Strategic Note and Annual Work Plan for 2014-2017. It is designed to support the Government of Nepal in its efforts to develop and implement policies to advance women’s economic empowerment and sustainable development.

The programme is envisaged to enhance the capacity of government officials as duty bearers to integrate and monitor the inclusion of gender equality provisions in economic policies, and provide skills and enterprise development assistance for networks of excluded women as rights holders for sustainable livelihoods. It will also increase the rights holders’ capacity and opportunity to influence national decision making processes for sustainable development. Research will be undertaken to strengthen the evidence base for policy advocacy on women’s economic empowerment. To support advocacy efforts to promote women’s economic empowerment, the programme will focus on creating an enabling environment to challenge structural inequalities as well as supporting the networks of excluded women to connect,  engage and contribute to national policy discussions and processes with influence.

The objective of the recruitment of the Programme Associate is to provide technical support to the Economist Group for Gender Equality at National Planning Commission (NPC) for the implementation of the normative frameworks and international standards on women’s human rights and national commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The Programme Associate will be based at the NPC for four days and at UN Women for one day and will work under the overall guidance of Director, NPC and Unit Head, Women Economic Empowerment Unit, UN Women. S/he will contribute to research, financial management, and programme implementation including providing necessary operational, administrative and programmatic support.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of Key Functions:

• Support in the formulation of programme and research strategies;
• Programme Management Support;
• Administrative and Financial Management Support to the Programme Unit;
• Facilitation of Knowledge Building and Knowledge Sharing.

Support in the formulation of programme and research Strategies

• Provide programme and administrative support in the preparation of programme work plans, budgets, and proposals on programme and research implementation arrangements;
• Assemble briefing materials and prepare power-point and other presentations for the programme unit;
• Identify sources, and gather and compile data and information for the preparation of documents, guidelines, speeches and position papers.

Programme Management Support 

• Support the Programme Team in the implementation of the control mechanisms for development projects through monitoring of budget preparation and modifications;
• Create projects in Atlas, prepare required budget revisions, revision of project award and project status, determination of unutilized funds, operational and financial close of a project;
• Support the Programme Team in the financial management of programmes;
• Provide guidance to the executing agencies on routine implementation of projects, tracking use of financial resources;
• Provide necessary information for the audit of programmes/projects and support implementation of audit recommendations;
• Organize, compile and process information from donors, Regional Office, and programme team, as inputs to various databases and documents;
• Support the Programme team in the tracking and reporting on mobilized resources.

 Administrative and Financial Management Support to the Programme Unit

• Review of Financial Reports; preparation of non-PO vouchers for development projects;
• Ensure maintenance of the internal expenditures control system which ensures that vouchers processed are matched and completed; transactions are correctly recorded and posted in Atlas;
• Take timely corrective actions on un-posted vouchers, including the vouchers with budget check errors, match exceptions, unapproved vouchers;
• Create requisitions in Atlas for development projects registers of goods receipt in Atlas;
• Make budget check for requisitions, POs and vouchers;
• Prepare cost sharing, and trust fund agreements, follow up on contributions within the CO resource mobilization efforts;
• Assist in the preparation of cost-recovery bills in Atlas by elaboration and implementation of the income tracking system and follow up on cost recovery.

Facilitation of Knowledge Building and Knowledge Sharing

• Support synthesis of lessons learnt and best practices related to programme management;
• Support synthesis of lessons learned and best practices in programme finance;
• Sound contributions to knowledge networks and communities of practice;
• Support organization of training for the office staff and partners on programme and operations related issues.

Competencies

Core values / guiding principles

Integrity

• Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.

Professionalism

• Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity

• Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies:

Ethics and Values

• Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.

Organizational Awareness

• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Development and Innovation

• Take charge of self-development and take initiative.

Work in teams

• Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

Communicating and Information Sharing

• Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication.

Self-management and Emotional Intelligence

• Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others.

Conflict Management

• Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing

• Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making

• Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making.

Functional Competencies:

• Ability to perform a broad range of specialized activities aimed at effective and efficient functioning of the Economic Empowerment unit including logistical support;
• Ability to provide input to business process re-engineering, elaboration and implementation of new data management systems;
• Creates, edits and presents information in clear and presentable formats, using appropriate IT functionality;
• Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities;
• Ability to handle a large volume of work possibly under time constraints;
• Ability to establish, build and sustain effective relationships with clients, demonstrating understanding of client's perspective; anticipates client needs and addresses them promptly;
• Ability to administer and execute financial processes and transactions;
• Ability to manage data, documents, correspondence and reports information and workflow.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in Business, Public Administration, Economics, Political Sciences, Social Sciences or related fields and specialized certificate of project management would be an added advantage.

Experience:

• A minimum of 3 years of administrative experience in a large or international corporation or organization;
• Experience in working in a computer environment using multiple office software packages, experience in ATLAS an additional advantage.

Language:

• Fluency in written and spoken English and Nepali is required.